Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
7
Cooperative Autonomy
The philosophy of “faster, better, cheaper” reflected NASA's desire to achieve
its goals while realistically addressing the changing environment in which it
operated. One outgrowth of this philosophy is the shift from performing sci-
ence missions using a few complex spacecraft to one where many simple space-
craft are employed. While simple spacecraft are faster and cheaper to build
and operate, they do not always deliver better science. There must be offset-
ting compensation for any loss of power to deliver science value by employing
innovative technologies and new methodologies that exploit the use of less
complex spacecraft. One such technology is cooperative autonomy.
Cooperative autonomy flows from the study of groups of individuals in
terms of how they are organized, how they communicate, and how they oper-
ate together to achieve their mission. The individuals, in the context of space
missions, may be human beings, spacecraft, software agents, or a mission op-
erations center. From modeling and studying the cooperative organization
and the interactions between its members come insights into possible new ef-
ficiencies and new technologies for developing more powerful space missions
by which to do science more cost effectively.
Cooperative autonomy also creates new opportunities. Its technologies
support cross-platform collaboration that allows two or more spacecraft to
act as a single virtual platform, and thus, possess capabilities and charac-
teristics that would not be feasible with a single real platform. For example,
with small telescope apertures on multiple, coordinated small spacecraft, the
resultant aperture of the virtual combined telescope can be much larger than
the telescope aperture on any single spacecraft.
This chapter outlines a model for cooperative autonomy. NASA's current
mission organization is described and discussed relative to this model. Virtual
platforms are also modeled and these models are used to assess the impact that
virtual platforms may have on the current NASA environment. Optimizations
are suggested that could lower overall operations costs, while improving the
range and/or the quality of the science product. The optimizations could be
